Posted on 01/28/2007 2:28:47 PM PST by freespirited
President Bush's ex-spokesman invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked in front of a grand jury about the illegal outing of spy Valerie Plame, prosecutors revealed this week. Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer sought and received immunity from prosecution for unmasking the secret agent.
Armed with this immunity, Fleischer is now expected to testify Monday in the perjury trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby.
Fleischer is expected to tell the court that Libby, formerly Vice President Cheney's top adviser, told him on July 7, 2003, that "he had some information that was hush-hush," said special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.
What was hush-hush was that Bush critic and former ambassador Joseph Wilson was married to Plame, a CIA operations officer. Wilson had infuriated Cheney by debunking the White House claim that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium in Niger for a nuclear bomb.
Fleischer cited his Fifth Amendment rights in 2004 before a federal grand jury and was "reluctantly" given immunity, Fitzgerald said in court Thursday.
"I didn't want to give him immunity," Fitzgerald said.
Libby is fighting perjury charges for telling a grand jury he first learned about Plame on July 10, 2003, from journalist Tim Russert. That is three days after Libby allegedly told Fleischer about Plame.
Fitzgerald told the jury in opening arguments that Fleischer also helped spread the news about the spy.
"Ari Fleischer had conversations with reporters about Wilson's wife that he should not have had," Fitzgerald said.
Libby's lawyer Ted Wells said Fleischer told NBC's David Gregory and others about Plame during a stroll while on a presidential trip to Africa.
Wells told jurors Thursday that "Fleischer may have issues of credibility because of a deal that was cut."
One does not need any sourced information whatsoever - the declarative statements alone suffice perfectly. More, these declarative statements have been provided by others gratis, without much prodding. Remember Miranda rule?
...and if your weren't looking, the same GSlob was ordered off a thread mere moments ago for inappropriate comments.
Because they have their plot line - Valerie Plame was "outed," and our national security damaged, in order to exact revenge on Joseph Wilson, who was exposing the lies of the Bush Administration to get us into a war to enrich big oil and Halliburton. The facts must be adjusted to fit the story. The press is living in a reality show and this is the plot that has been concocted for our entertainment.
When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
She may have been outed as a CIA employee, but she was not covert at the time, as even Joe Wilson has admitted, so the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was never violated. As far as I know, outing someone as a non-covert CIA employee is legal.
If it was illegal then Scooter Libby would be on trial for that. The witch hunt could only identify a discrepancy in his statements timeline so they've decided to bring pergury charges against him.
They must be fairly frustrated with that wimpy charge after thinking they'd been smelling red meat for so long...only to come up dry.
Ollie North is still going strong !
JULY 8, 2003 : (CAPITOL HILL BLUE PUBLISHES DOUG THOMPSON ARTICLE UNDER THE TITLE "White House Admits Bush Lied About Iraqi Nukes" - See the mythical? CIA guy "TERRENCE J WILKINSON") The bold headline was backed by an equally assertive lead-in, which stated "After weeks of denial, the White House Monday finally admitted President Bush lied in his January State of the Union Address when he claimed Iraq had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa."
This assertion went far beyond what other news organizations were reporting, which was that the Bush administration had admitted that the claim made in the State of the Union Address was based on information the President later found to be unreliable. There were other eye-raising details in the story, however.
The article quoted a "CIA advisor" named Terrance J. Wilkinson, claiming he had been present at two White House briefings attended by the President. "The report had already been discredited," the story quoted Wilkinson as stating. "This point was clearly made when the president was in the room during at least two of the briefings" said Wilkinson, who claimed Bush responded in anger. "He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," the Capitol Hill Blue story continued Wilkinson's quote. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country."
Wilkinson claimed to have written "numerous memos" questioning the use of "intelligence information that we knew to be from dubious sources." While American troops continue to search Iraq for a smoking gun regarding weapons of mass destruction, these allegations, if true, would be the smoking gun the left wing of American politics has been searching for in their quest to discredit the Bush administration.
- by freeper William McKinley, GAMES PEOPLE PLAY, July 10, 2003
See "White House Admits Bush Lied About Iraqi Nukes"
JULY 8, 2003 : (CAPITOL HILL BLUE'S DOUG THOMPSON PUBLISHES STORY ABOUT "T J WILKINSON'S" CLAIM TO HAVE BEEN IN THE OVAL OFFICE WHEN WILSON'S MEMO WAS PRESENTED) Based on the statements of one Terrence J. Wilkinson, who purported to "be there" when Wilson's memo was presented in the Oval Office, Doug Thompson publishes his J'Accuse in CHB. Quickly, Wilkinson's story (as well as Wilkinson himself) is proven a complete lie. But, now and only now, all hell breaks loose!
With the impetus that the President had forcibly dismissed a CIA-commissioned report, the story races around the world. Every major network, newspaper and news magazine hops on the story -- there is virtually no attribution to CHB and NO mention of Terrence J. Wilkinson. When CHB backtracks and retracts, the story shifts and the original inflammatory accusations are edited out. Instead, they begin to report response to the original report...and momentum gathers behind "Bush lied".
In other words, in my opinion, the whole escapade was a carefully planned agitprop operation in which Doug Thompson and CHB were unwitting tools. After over three months of lying fallow, somebody (employed by someone) found a way for the Niger operation to gain traction. Without Terrence J. Wilkinson, none of this would've happened!
It was a major operation bent on one purpose -- breathing life into what was a dead story. - FreeRepublic Freeper okie01 , reply 1,305 posted on 07/23/2003 7:08 PM PDT by okie01
(* My note :Wilkerson later proves to be a fake, and by Wilson's own admission he wrote no report on his trip to Niger or his findings there.)
TRUHOUT.COM is the website registered one day before 9/11- on September 10, 2001. It is run by Marc Ash. Another individual associated with the group is Peter Daou, of Online Rapid Response for John Kerry for President, Inc.
A contributing author to Truthout's website is former CIA employee Ray McGovern, of the group called VIPS which has publicly advocated that government employees leak classfied info.
Another contributing author to Truthout is Larry Johnson. Larry Johnson has a particular hatred of Ahmed Chalabi, Karl Rove and Judith Miller; Johnson when he was in the Clinton admin spent time downplaying the islamist terror threat from bin Laden. LAter he started writing for Antiwar, a site we know of from Pitt potsting their stuff on FR. Antiwar is also the group associated with Ismail Royer, who was one of the perps in the VA Jihad/Paintball cell.
Larry Johnson is also a friend of CIA leaker Mary McCarthy I mentioned earlier in the thread. Johnson is also heavily invested inthe Nigerflap plame leak story, and tried to smear Porter Goss with the hookergate story.
Another contributing author is William Rivers Pitt. Pitt is an associate of former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter, known for accepting funding from Shakir al Khafaji, who obtained it from Iraqi oil vouchers during theoil for Food sanctions period. Pitt and Ritter were involved in producing aan antiwar book on Iraq.
He's appropriately named.
Gorelick ( and the 9/11 Commission Report Dietrich L. Snell was a Senior Counsel & Team Leader ) were put in charge of disseminate what information got seen by the full Commission.
So the woman who created the Wall which blocked the flow of information, was again put in charge of blocking information to the Commission which was charged with finding out why information got blocked.
For a year and a half after this story became a major public relations problem for the administration, Colin Powell continued to serve as Secretary of State without letting anyone know that it was his assistant, Armitage, who was the source of the leak. That's almost reason enough for Hillary to offer Powell the VP slot in 2008.
He sure is, and if it goes as I hope,
Ari will pull the same act as Ollie
during the Iran Contra deal....lets hope
ping
Love that graphic george!!
Thanks
I borrowed it
8-)
Noooooo....then when I watch SG1 reruns I will see Carter as a traitor instead of a hero!
Remember this. Rember as well; that the 'sound of fury' response from the Repubs was. . .deafening; or perhaps 'we' were. Never heard much more than a few groaning protests for this one.
On the same note. ..Sandy Berger being called by a few brave Repubs; to take lie detector test; so far no response from Gonzales. . .and the majority of Repub cadre.
The old 'why ask why'. . .comes to mind. . .
Did wonder if GW was reay paying attention here. . .
Ari did the smart thing. Had Libby done the same, he wouldn't be in a trial. If not for political considerations he probably would have.
"...the even bigger problem is that no one EVER asks WHY the wall was created in the first place..
The answer, of course, is that it was created to protect clinton from investigation of his Chinese money laundering.
clinton is FAR more responsible for our failure to detect 9/11 than is reported...."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.